Election engineering
The second legacy of military rule is election engineering. The two military dictators, Ziaur Rahman and HM Ershad, organised a series of elections to establish their legitimacy. However, all these elections lacked credibility as the state machinery was used to gain outcomes that were favourable to the regime. The intelligence agencies, civil administration, and the police were the three key instruments used for engineering election results.
The first military dictator, Ziaur Rahman, organised three elections. In 1977, he held a referendum and claimed 87% voter turnout with 99% “yes” vote. He, then, organised a presidential election in 1978 claiming 76% of the vote. In 1979, parliamentary elections were held where it was alleged that the government pre-determined not only the seats that would go to the state-sponsored party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which Ziaur Rahman floated, but seats were also allocated to some state-sponsored opposition candidates to create an image of multi-party competitive elections.
The second military dictator, HM Ershad, also organised three elections: a presidential election in 1986, and two parliamentary elections, one in 1986 and another in 1988.
He was, however, less successful than Zia in “persuading” all opposition parties to contest the elections. Zia’s party, BNP, boycotted both the 1986 and 1988 parliamentary elections. The Awami League, which participated in the 1986 parliamentary elections, but subsequently resigned from the parliament within two years, also boycotted the 1988 parliamentary elections. In the 1988 elections an opposition made up of once unelectable candidates, was fabricated and “ensured” a few seats in the parliament.
The repeated fraudulent elections, organised by the two military regimes, established certain patterns and practices which were unfortunately carried over even during the years of our electoral democracy.
Democratically elected governments also attempted to use state agencies to influence election results. The Election Commission (EC) was never empowered to act independently and hold the government accountable for violations of election guidelines. For example, several by-elections held under the BNP government in the early 1990s were grossly rigged. This led the AL-led political opposition to demand organisation of parliamentary elections under a non-partisan “caretaker” government (NCG) which was an innovative idea not usually practised in parliamentary democracies.
The BNP initially rejected the idea of NCG, and went through the motions of a voter-less election in February 1996, but was eventually compelled to frame and pass the 13th amendment of the constitution institutionalising the NCG in 1996.
Two relatively free and fair elections were organised under the NCG in June, 1996 and October, 2001. However, the scheduled January, 2007 elections could not be held as the incumbent BNP-led four party government attempted to influence the EC as well as the NCG, and the political opposition led by the AL refused to participate in the scheduled 2007 elections.
As discussed earlier, failure to organise a peaceful election participated by all major parties led to a military intervention in 2007, but the military backed government did organise a free and credible election in 2008 and handed over power to an elected political government. However, in 2014, we again witnessed a democratically elected government follow many strategies of election-engineering which have been practised by the military regimes. A majority in parliament was ensured through uncontested elections, and an opposition party was fabricated.
State-sponsored party building
The third feature of military rule was state-sponsored party-building. When the military dictators decided to civilise themselves and face elections, they floated their own political parties. Members from both left-wing and right-wing parties joined these sarkari (official) parties sponsored by the military dictators. State patronage, and not ideology, was the main attraction of these parties. Thus in 1977, Ziaur Rahman founded the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) by recruiting members from both the right leaning Muslim League (ML), which had collaborated with the Pakistan Army in 1971, and the left leaning National Awami Party (NAP). In 1986, HM Ershad founded the Jatiya Party (JP), by getting supporters from the ML, NAP as well as from a sizeable rump of the BNP.
As the BNP and the JP began their journey as sarkari parties, people who joined these parties could aspire to draw on state patronage to immediately become members of the cabinet, or the parliament, or local councils. These parties mobilised popular support mainly though their control of public goods and services.
Again this legacy of using state patronage to build and maintain support for political parties did not end with military rule. Indeed, the practice was exacerbated during the subsequent years of electoral democracy when all institutions became increasingly influenced, and the winning political party or alliance held monopoly control on all state patronage.
Indeed, during the electoral democratic era, the distribution of patronage became increasingly exclusionary as a “winner-takes-all” culture took root.
Before the 10th parliamentary elections, we also saw the democratically elected Grand Alliance Government pursue the strategy of breaking existing parties/alliance through a carrot and stick policy, a strategy which was followed by the two military rulers when they built the BNP and the JP, by fragmenting existing parties.
Political use of religion
The final legacy of military rule, that I shall focus, on is the use of religion to recruit political support. The Bangladesh Constitution, adopted in 1972, enshrined secularism as one of the four fundamental principles of state policy, and religion-based parties and politics were banned.
But soon after assuming power, Ziaur Rahman brought back Islam as a tool of political mobilisation. In 1977, through a Martial Law Ordinance, he made significant changes to the constitution. Secularism was deleted as a fundamental principle; and in its place a phrase “Trust and faith in Almighty Allah” was inserted. The preamble of the constitution invoked another Islamist phrase: “Bismillah-ar-Rahman-ar-Rahim.” The second military dictator, HM Ershad went one step further. In 1988, he introduced the eighth amendment of the constitution which made Islam the state religion.
As the BNP and the JP, started portraying secularism as anti-Islamic, the AL was put on a defensive mode, and after the restoration of electoral democracy in 1991, the AL also started to use Islamist symbols. The 15th amendment of the constitution illustrates the contradictory position of the AL. The 15th amendment has kept Islam as the state religion, but at the same time, in the fundamental principles of the constitution, secularism was restored.
The Islamist parties were first rehabilitated during military rule. Ziaur Rahman withdrew the ban on religion-based parties. The Muslim League and the Jaamt-e-Islami were revived. Many of the Islamist politicians and alleged collaborators with the Pakistani military junta in its genocide committed on the Bengalis in 1971, joined the BNP. Their political revival continued through the Ershad-era. The Jamaat-i-Islami followed a shrewd strategy of political alliance building. The Jamaat participated in the 1986 parliamentary elections. They also later joined the anti-Ersahad movement.
The Jamaat’s strategy of electoral participation as well as participation in mass movement through shifting alliance building with the AL and the BNP yielded rich dividends for the party. Though Jamaat had a small share of the popular vote, it could exert a much bigger political influence as the deciding arbiter because parliamentary elections were closely contested between the AL and the BNP. Thus, in 1991, the BNP was able to form the government with the support of the Jamaat. In 1996, the AL was successful in winning the election when it managed to keep the Jamaat away from an electoral alliance with the BNP. Again in 2001, BNP won the elections when it formed an electoral alliance with Jamaat. This alliance was carried over in the 2008 elections, but proved less fruitful for the BNP.
However, during the last few years, Jamaat has emerged as an invaluable partner of the BNP as only the Jamaat cadres have demonstrated street fighting power to continue agitation against the AL-led regime.
Let’s now discuss about the undemocratic practices introduced by our elected political governments which have hindered our transition from electoral to a more consolidated democracy.
Undemocratic patterns and practices under elected political governments
While the democratically elected governments perpetuated many of the undemocratic practices of military rule, we witnessed the emergence of several additional undemocratic patterns during the tenure of elected political governments. Despite the restoration of the parliamentary form of government in 1991, through the adoption of the 12th amendment of the constitution, the parliament hardly functioned.
The parliamentary opposition, claiming lack of voice, persistently boycotted the sittings of parliament, and instead chose to agitate on the streets demanding either resignation of the elected government, or threatening to overthrow the elected government. In the absence of a functioning opposition in the parliament, we could not develop a system of checks and balances within the government which is very critical for sustaining democratic governance.
The parliament is the constitutionally empowered body to scrutinise the activities of the executive, and hold it to account. In the absence of parliamentary scrutiny, the executive branch became increasingly more powerful under democratically elected political governments. Civil administration, police, and lower judiciary came under partisan political pressure which eroded the rule of law. The political competition between the two major parties, the AL and the BNP, instead of ensuring a peaceful transfer of power between the two parties, escalated into an enduring political confrontation. Bangladesh consistently scored low in various assessments of the quality of democracy conducted by different organisations such as the Freedom House and the World Bank. Weak rule of law, lack of accountability, and confrontational style of politics can safely be identified as three persistent undemocratic patterns that have marked Bangladesh’s electoral democracy.
Weak rule of law
After the restoration of democracy in 1991, successive elected political governments attempted to politicise the civil and police administration and lower judiciary by using the government’s power of appointment, transfer, and promotion. Supporters of the ruling party or parties were rewarded while those deemed loyal to the outgoing government or who were not conspicuously loyal to the incumbent government were ignored or punished. Law enforcement became partisan and arbitrary.
The country was also plagued by pervasive political as well as non-political violence. Inter-party and intra-party contestations were often settled through violent means.
To improve the law and order situation, the BNP-led alliance government from 2002 onwards, began a series of anti-crime drives using the military and the paramilitary forces, eventually setting up a specially equipped quasi-military body, known as the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB). These drives were marked by incidents of extra-judicial killing and torture by law enforcement agencies, which drew widespread criticism from the human rights organisations inside and outside Bangladesh.
When the AL-led grand alliance government came to power in 2009, they pledged to eliminate, or at least reduce extra-judicial killings. But the media reports indicate many instances of extra-judicial killing over the last five years. Goom (enforced disappearance) has became another instrument of partisan use of law enforcement.
Overall, the country’s performance in establishing rule of law was rated poorly by both the Freedom House and the World Bank in their successive global assessments.
Pervasive corruption was another indicator of weak rule of law. Allegations of corruption, particularly by politicians, were given wide publicity in the media, but these allegations were rarely investigated or prosecuted without prejudice. Indeed, successive elected governments increasingly used anti-corruption laws to pursue partisan interests.
High profile corruption cases were lodged against leaders of the political opposition, but the government rarely moved to file anti-corruption cases against high-ranking members of the ruling party. Again, Bangladesh scored poorly in all global surveys with regard to her efforts to control corruption.
The current government has recently sent signals that it will take action against members of the ruling party in corruption cases. We still have to wait and see the outcomes of this intention of the government.
Lack of accountability
Though during the era of electoral democracy, some of the institutions tried to ensure what we call in political science jargon “vertical accountability” such as the media, civil society, and the electorate became stronger which resulted in Bangladesh consistently scoring high on “voice” indicator in the World Bank’s assessment of democratic governance, we still had problems with what is called “horizontal accountability” institutions such as the parliament, judiciary, election commission (EC), anti-corruption commission (ACC) etc which continued to remain weak.
As pointed out earlier, the parliament which is the most important horizontal accountability institution to hold the executive accountable, became dysfunctional as the main opposition party started to boycott parliamentary sittings and chose street agitations to register their protest and destabilise elected governments. Nearly half of the parliamentary sittings were boycotted by the opposition - 75% of the fifth parliament, the eighth parliament, and over 80% sittings of the ninth parliament.
In the absence of the opposition, the ruling party members also lost interest in attending parliament, which frequently faced a quorum crisis, and mostly tended to rubber-stamp the decisions and actions of the government.
The parliament not only failed to discharge its scrutiny and oversight functions, members of parliament also refused to bring themselves under a parliamentary code of conduct to ensure their continuing accountability to their electorate. The media reported many cases of misconduct and corruption of MPs, but they never faced investigation or punishments. As a result, media reports had little impact in changing the conduct of the MPs.
Other horizontal accountability institutions such as the judiciary, the Election Commission (EC) and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) were not empowered to check the misbehaviour of the government.
The judiciary, particularly the lower judiciary, remained under the control of the executive branch of the government and was often used to further the partisan interests of the party/parties in power. The EC was not empowered to challenge the government’s electoral malpractices. The ACC also remained weak and could not move against anybody independently without the green signal from the government.